H. R.Wilson S. C. Cowley
Flux tubes confined in tokamaks are observed to erupt explosively in some plasma disruptions and edge localized modes. Similar eruptions occur in astrophysical plasmas, for example, in solar flares and magnetospheric substorms. A single unifying nonlinear evolution equation describing such behavior in both astrophysical and tokamak plasmas is deriv…
PublishedA.J. Webster H.R. Wilson A.M.M. Scaife
A tokamak’s economic performance is strongly affected by the plasma pressure that it may sustain, which in turn is limited by the maximum pressure gradients that may be supported. Ballooning modes are typically driven unstable by increasing the pressure gradient, and because they can radially extend across many rational surfaces, they can serious…
PublishedThawatchai Onjun Arnold H. Kritz Glenn Bateman Vassili Parail Howard R. Wilson Alex Dnestrovskij
The time evolution of edge localized modes ( ELMs ) in the Joint European Torus tokamak [ P. H. Rebut and et al. , Nucl. Fusion 25 , 1011 ( 1985 )] is investigated using the JETTO predictive modeling code [ M. Erba and et al. , Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 39 , 261 ( 1997 )] . It is found that both pressure-driven ballooning and current-driven pe…
PublishedD. A. Mossessian P. Snyder A. Hubbard J. W. Hughes M. Greenwald et al.
For steady state high-confinement-mode (H-mode) operation, a relaxation mechanism is required to limit build-up of the edge gradient and impurity content. Alcator C-Mod [Hutchinson et al., Phys. Plasmas 1, 1511 (1994)] sees two such mechanisms—EDA (enhanced D-alpha H mode) and grassy ELMs (edge localized modes) , but not large type I ELMs. In EDA…
PublishedL. C. Ingesson D. J. Wilson
Aperture, pin-hole and collimator detection systems are often used in plasma diagnostics, for example, in soft x-ray detection and bolometer systems. In this article the simultaneous optimization of viewing-beam overlap and light yield is considered in multi-channel aperture and collimator systems for two-dimensional (2D)tomography. This article br…
PublishedR. J. Buttery O. Sauter R. Akers M. Gryaznevich R. Martin C. D. Warrick H. R. Wilson The Mast Team
Results from MAST provide a first test of neoclassical tearing mode physics in the spherical tokamak (ST). The mode accounts for the main performance limit in conventional tokamaks. Its behavior in the ST is remarkably well described by existing theoretical models, although it is more readily seeded by sawtooth events in these scenarios. Modeling c…
PublishedP. B. Snyder H. R. Wilson J. R. Ferron L. L. Lao A. W. Leonard et al.
A model based on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability of the tokamak plasma edge region is presented, which describes characteristics of edge localized modes (ELMs) and the pedestal. The model emphasizes the dual role played by large bootstrap currents driven by the sharp pressure gradients in the pedestal region. Pedestal currents reduce the edge m…
PublishedH. R. Wilson P. B. Snyder G. T. A. Huysmans R. L. Miller
A new computational tool, edge localized instabilities in tokamaks equilibria (ELITE), has been developed to help our understanding of short wavelength instabilities close to the edge of tokamak plasmas. Such instabilities may be responsible for the edge localized modes observed in high confinement H-mode regimes, which are a serious concern for ne…
PublishedF. L. Waelbroeck J.W. Connor H. R. Wilson
Gyrokinetic theory is used to investigate the effect of the polarization drift on magnetic island evolution. Three regimes are found. For island phase velocities between the ion- and electric-drift velocities, the polarization current is shown to be stabilizing. For phase velocities between the electric- and electron- drift velocities, the island e…
Published